Pine brooms

Pin ItIn a small park near my home called Hanes Park, there are several older pine trees with intensely dense growths on them called "Pine Brooms."  These growths presented such opportunity to bring out the static chaos and gestures that the more oderly trees without these sematic mutations lacked.  I am personally attracted to the beauty of asymmetry and imperfection.  I also love the oily, pitch-created kaleidoscope of colors that can be pulled out of the tessellated pine bark.  For me, they become almost jewel toned and act as wonderful moments of contrast to the colors in the broom.

Hanes pine broom #1

Hanes pine broom #2

Dusk understory

Pin ItI have always been fascinated by the complexities of criss crossing branches and how they carve up space. What better time to push those forms to their graphic base then dusk just when the light is fading fast and colors compress to a narrow band on the color wheel. This is a painting from along the Barrington River in winter near my home. I really felt the tiny puzzle shapes of color scattered throughout the images and loved pushing to deep indigos and cyans.  the abstract of the colors capture between the slashing branch shapes was fun finding the right mix of related shades.

Barrington River dusk understory

Blythewold rock beach

This painting shows some of the wonderful and colorful complexity that has grown on the rocks and debris at the water's edge along the naragansett bay here in Rhode Island.  Blythewold is a marvelous old mansion and grounds that are open to the public and this view was found along their beach.  It is a place full of the cries of gulls and the rushing shushing noise of the constant wave lapping.
The shapes are so rich.  Click on the image and then zoom in on the big rock to see abstracts just jump off the page.

Blythewold Rock beach

The simple drama of trees

I have always been enchanted by Plein Air painters and by the romantic era in painting.  I found that breaking down the images into their more graphic elements sends me in that direction (happily).  These two images really came through as they became simpler.  It's so interesting how emotion can be found in a photo or coaxed into a new place by the artists choices.

Lincoln Park tree at sunset

Morning's cold fire

Hanes bog in winter

Here's three digital paintings of a local small park called Hane's park shortly after a big snowfall.  I love the quality the color shapes take on with the inky water and the bluish snow clumps contrasting and breaking everything up like floating negative space.  The snow pushes these images more abstract and compresses the visual space in wonderful ways. I've been experimenting with the color of water and reflections that turn the surface into color patterns like intricate stained glass.  Again, this process exposes some very different ways of seeing the natural world.  Individual things become melded into bigger gestures and randomized patters and what used to be unified surfaces now become puzzle pieces of tone and saturated line.  Comic book artists understand much of this because of the nature of their craft but these images dissemble the shapes with nature's randomness rather than human stylization.

Hanes Bog #1

Hanes bog #2

Hanes bog #3